Team Utah2015-02-25T02:18:46Zhttp://teamutah.org/feed/atom/WordPressjacobhttp://teamutah.org/?p=20322015-02-25T02:18:46Z2015-02-25T02:18:46Z

Recently four team riders from Team Utah Park City chapter and one coach headed out to Mammoth Lakes, CA to participate in the 3rd stop of this year’s USSA Revolution Tour. The event included halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air disciplines, and was held on the same features used for the US Grand Prix hosted by Mammoth the week before.

Team riders Jacob Hunsaker and Victor Melilli competed in the slopestyle event, and riders Edward Enyart and Shane Chappell competed in the big air event. Coach Jacob Levine was the coach for the trip, and in addition to helping the riders perform their best on the contest days worked with each of them to film during the practice days. The team was even fortunate enough to shoot photos for a day with World renown snowboard photographer Kevin Westenbarger as they threw down on Mammoth Mountain’s jumps and rails in its Unbound Terrain Park.

Each of the riders threw down every day on hill, stepping up their game to adapt to the biggest features they’ve had a chance to session this year, in perfect conditions. When all was said and done the crew left without any podiums at the contests, but with some amazing action photos as well as enough solid video clips to put together this edit.

]]>0jacobhttp://teamutah.org/?p=20132014-12-27T04:27:43Z2014-12-27T04:27:43ZThis was the team’s 3rd year attending the Dirksen Derby, and the event did not disappoint.

14 of us loaded up our gear into 3 vehicles, and made the nearly 1000 mile trek to Mt. Bachelor, Oregon, for 3 days of amazing shredding with a who’s who of the snowboard industry.

Team Rider Becky Stevenson shredding red the course

Every year for the event two rally courses are built that are most similar to a banked slalom, however the finely sculpted berms go through trees and the course also features other snow made obstacles to negotiate.

Of the two courses, one is marked with green flags and the other with red. The green course is the mellower of the two, but both courses require a combination of skills to put down a competitive race time.

The team hiking to Mt. Bachelor’s summit on qualifying day.

While this year didn’t bring deep powder, Mt. Bachelor did have enough coverage to open the summit of the mountain for the first time this year during the contest weekend.

The sweet pad we rented for the trip

This year we rented a house and the whole team was able to stay in the same place. A big thanks goes out to bendvacationrentals.com for lining up a house that fit our needs perfectly.

With a big group of people in a big house we ate big dinners together.

Team Rider Bennet Giblin psyched on one of the big pizza’s we got for one of our big family style meals.

While just riding in the event is a blast and well worth the trip, this year the team scored. Not only did most of the team qualify for finals, but we also took home 3 podiums in 3 different divisions.

From Left to Right: Team Rider Parker Giblin took 2nd place for the grom division, Coach Reid took 1st in the splitboard division, and Team Rider Shane Chappell took 3rd in the men’s division.

This event was truly all time and represents much of what we all love about snowboarding. In addition to being a fun competition to kick off the season, the event is also a fundraiser for Tyler Eklund, who suffered a life changing injury during a snowboard competition nearly a decade ago.

Check out the video edit of the trip, and plan on going to the event next year. I know that once you’ve experienced the awesomeness that is the Dirksen Derby, you’ll want to go back year after year.

]]>1jacobhttp://teamutah.org/?p=19712014-10-29T17:31:08Z2014-10-29T17:26:41ZThe team has been working hard all fall getting ready for the upcoming winter season. As a team we’ve been cross training multiple time per week.

Ski Utah blogger Andrew Muse recently wrote a post about cross training in the fall to prepare for the winter, and featured our team in his video.

Our second summer snowboarding trip was in early July to High Cascade Snowboard Camp, with 8 of our younger team members. We had great weather every day and all the riders pushed themselves to learn new tricks as well as take them to bigger features. We split our time on hill between riding High Cascade’s private snowboard parks and the public park at Timberline.